A number of industries require periodic thorough cleaning of the equipment, which may include electric motors, in order to maintain health standards. For example, in the dairy industry, in a milking parlor, the automatic milking machines and associated pumping and refrigeration equipment must be thoroughly cleaned at least once a day, and usually after each milking shift. In the freezer cases, steam cleaning is required with high-pressure water streams to clean the equipment including motors and refrigeration equipment.
In Morrill U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,166, it was suggested that a spinner cone be utilized to throw off water spray. However, this meant that the motor had to be energized and running during the cleaning process, and normally everything in the food processing environment is not energized nor running during the cleaning process, so this is an anomaly.
Other patents have suggested some form of a spring to move a rotor axially and thus engage a friction brake, which friction brake is released by the electromagnetic pull between rotor and stator attempting to realign these two components. This axially acting spring and brake are suggested in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,501,497; 1,771,281; 2,172,440; 2,488,122; 2,694,781; and 4,059,339.